Tripartite guidelines on fair employment practices — Complete 2026 guide

The Tripartite guidelines on fair employment practices (TGFEP) set the standard every Singapore employer must meet when recruiting, managing and dismissing staff. Issued by the Ministry of Manpower, NTUC and SNEF, they require merit-based, non-discriminatory decisions — and breaches are punished through work pass sanctions, even before the Workplace Fairness Act 2025 takes effect.

Little Big Employment Agency works with a panel of corporate and employment law firms; this article is general information, not legal advice.

What the tripartite guidelines on fair employment practices are

The TGFEP are Singapore’s longest-standing fair employment framework, administered since 2006 through the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP). They are not an Act of Parliament: they are guidelines agreed between the three tripartite partners — the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF). Their legal force comes from the way MOM enforces them: employers found in breach can have their work pass privileges suspended, be placed on the Fair Consideration Framework watchlist, and in serious cases face prosecution for related offences such as false declarations.

From 2027, the core of the guidelines will be supplemented by the Workplace Fairness Act 2025, which converts key prohibitions into statute for employers with 25 or more employees. The guidelines will continue to operate alongside the Act — covering smaller firms, and conduct or characteristics the Act does not reach. Understanding the TGFEP therefore remains essential for every employer in 2026, regardless of size.

Who must comply

All employers in Singapore must abide by the TGFEP — local and foreign-owned, large and small, across every sector. There is no headcount threshold and no exemption for startups or family businesses. The guidelines also apply across the full employment lifecycle: job advertising, application forms, interviews, selection, remuneration, appraisal, promotion, training, posting, retrenchment and dismissal.

Compliance matters most acutely for employers who hire foreign professionals, because MOM’s principal enforcement lever is the work pass system. Section 5(1) of the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act 1990 prohibits employing a foreign employee otherwise than in accordance with a valid work pass, and MOM treats access to Employment Passes and S Passes as a privilege conditional on fair hiring of locals. An employer debarred for discriminatory practices typically loses the ability to apply for or renew work passes for 12 to 24 months.

The five principles of fair employment

The guidelines are organised around five principles:

• Recruit and select on merit — skills, experience and ability to perform the job — regardless of age, race, gender, religion, marital status and family responsibilities, or disability.
• Respect employees and treat them fairly, with proper grievance-handling procedures in place.
• Provide fair opportunities for training, development and promotion based on strengths and contribution.
• Reward fairly, based on ability, performance, contribution and experience.
• Comply with labour laws and adopt the guidelines, including the Employment Act 1968 and the Retirement and Re-employment Act 1993.

Several statutory provisions reinforce these principles. Section 14 of the Employment Act 1968 requires due inquiry before an employee is dismissed for misconduct, and Section 4 of the Retirement and Re-employment Act 1993 prohibits dismissing an employee below the prescribed minimum retirement age on the ground of age. The guidelines extend this baseline into areas statute has historically not covered, such as recruitment advertising and interview questions.

Job advertisements and interviews: the practical rules

The most commonly enforced part of the TGFEP concerns recruitment. In practice:

• Job advertisements must not state a preference for a particular age, race, religion, gender, marital status or nationality unless there is a genuine, justifiable job requirement — and where one exists, it must be stated in the advertisement.
• Phrases such as “Singaporeans only”, “below 35”, “Mandarin speakers preferred” (without justification) or “recent NS men” are non-compliant. Where language ability is genuinely needed — for example, to serve a customer base that communicates only in that language — the advertisement must say why.
• Application forms and interviews should not ask for age, date of birth, marital status, number of children, religion or National Service liability unless relevant to the job and justified.
• Words like “workplace fairness” need substance behind them: selection criteria should be written down before interviews begin, and interview notes retained.

The Fair Consideration Framework: advertising before work pass applications

The Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) operationalises the guidelines for employers hiring foreign professionals. Before submitting an Employment Pass or S Pass application, an employer must advertise the role on the MyCareersFuture portal for at least 14 consecutive calendar days and consider all applicants fairly. Exemptions apply where the company has fewer than 10 employees, where the fixed monthly salary for the role is S$22,500 or more, for intra-corporate transferees, and for short-term roles of one month or less.

Numerical context for 2026: the Employment Pass minimum qualifying salary is S$5,600 for new applications (S$6,200 in financial services), rising with age to around S$10,700 for candidates in their mid-40s, and EP candidates must also score at least 40 points under the COMPASS framework. The S Pass minimum qualifying salary is S$3,150 (S$3,650 in financial services) for applications from 1 September 2025. An EP application costs S$105 to lodge and S$225 on issuance, with most online applications processed in about 10 business days. Employers who advertise as a formality while having pre-selected a foreign candidate risk FCF watchlisting, application rejections and debarment.

Performance management, retrenchment and dismissal under the guidelines

Fair employment does not end at the offer letter. The guidelines expect performance to be managed against objective, communicated criteria, with appraisals documented and underperformance addressed through warnings and improvement plans before dismissal is considered. Where dismissal is for misconduct, the statutory requirement of due inquiry under Section 14 of the Employment Act 1968 applies, and the inquiry itself must be conducted without regard to protected characteristics.

Retrenchment attracts particular scrutiny. Selection for retrenchment must be based on objective criteria such as the ability to contribute to the company’s future business needs — not on age, family responsibilities or nationality. MOM expects employers with at least 10 employees to notify it of retrenchments, and the tripartite partners’ advisory on managing excess manpower encourages alternatives such as redeployment and shorter work weeks before headcount cuts. A retrenchment exercise that disproportionately removes older workers, pregnant employees or any single nationality without documented objective criteria is a reliable way to attract both TAFEP attention and, from 2027, statutory claims under the Workplace Fairness Act 2025.

Dismissals of pregnant employees deserve a separate flag: an employee dismissed without sufficient cause while pregnant may be entitled to maternity benefits she would otherwise have received, and maternity-related dismissals are among the complaints MOM treats most seriously.

Age-friendly and family-friendly expectations

Two further strands of the guidelines matter for workforce planning in 2026. First, age: with the statutory minimum retirement age at 63 and rising to 64 from 1 July 2026, and the re-employment age rising from 68 to 69 on the same date, employers must offer re-employment to eligible seniors on fair terms and must not use age as a proxy for capability — see our compliance roadmap for the retirement age rising to 64 and re-employment age to 69. Second, family responsibilities: the guidelines expect employers to consider flexible work arrangement requests properly, an expectation formalised since 1 December 2024 by the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests, which require employers to respond to formal FWA requests within two months.

Step-by-step: building TGFEP compliance in 2026

1. Audit all live job advertisements across portals, your careers page and recruiters for discriminatory wording. Fix or justify every flagged phrase.
2. Standardise selection documentation. Written criteria, structured interview scorecards and retained notes for every shortlisted candidate.
3. Review application forms. Strip out age, marital status, religion and family questions unless demonstrably job-relevant.
4. Check your FCF process. Confirm 14-day MyCareersFuture advertising before each EP or S Pass application, and document why the successful candidate was selected over local applicants.
5. Put a grievance procedure in writing. This is both a TGFEP expectation and a forthcoming statutory duty under the Workplace Fairness Act 2025 for firms with 25 or more employees; our guide to what employers must do before the WFA’s 2027 commencement sets out the detail.
6. Train hiring managers annually. Most breaches are committed by line managers, not HR.
7. Calendar the transition. Map which of your obligations remain guideline-based and which become statutory from 2027.

A typical SME compliance project of this kind takes 3–6 weeks and costs between S$2,000 and S$10,000 where external HR or legal support is engaged — modest against the cost of a 12-month work pass debarment.

Enforcement in practice: what a TAFEP case looks like

A typical enforcement sequence begins with a complaint to TAFEP from a job applicant or employee, or with MOM’s own data analytics flagging an outlier hiring pattern — for instance, a firm whose professional workforce is dominated by a single nationality against the industry norm. TAFEP first engages the employer to understand its practices and usually requires corrective steps: amended advertisements, documented selection criteria, training, or changes to organisational structure. Cooperative employers who remediate promptly often go no further.

Uncooperative or egregious cases escalate. MOM can place the firm on the Fair Consideration Framework watchlist, where every work pass application receives close scrutiny and approval rates fall sharply; it can suspend the firm’s work pass privileges for 12 to 24 months; and where false declarations were made in pass applications, prosecution under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act 1990 is available. For most firms the commercial pain of a hiring freeze on foreign talent far exceeds any fine, which is exactly why the tripartite partners chose work pass privileges as the enforcement lever.

Common mistakes employers make

• Treating the guidelines as optional because they are “not law”. MOM enforces them through work pass sanctions that can halt a firm’s foreign hiring entirely.
• Discriminatory wording hidden in agency briefs. Telling a recruiter “no candidates above 40” breaches the guidelines even if the advertisement is clean — and exposes both employer and agency.
• FCF advertising as theatre. Interviewing no local applicants, or interviewing them without records, is a classic watchlist trigger.
• Asking prohibited questions at interview after a compliant advertisement — the guidelines cover the whole funnel.
• No documentation. When TAFEP queries a hiring decision, the absence of written selection criteria is read against the employer.

How the guidelines fit the wider hiring landscape

For foreign founders, fair employment compliance starts before the first hire: the company must exist, have a registered office and appoint officers before it can advertise roles or sponsor passes. The Singapore Secretary Services guide to Singapore Pte Ltd company registration for foreigners covers that foundation. At the top of the market, family office principals relocating under the ONE Pass or Global Investor Programme — explained in the Raffles Corporate Services guide to the Family Office Principal track under ONE Pass and GIP — must apply the same fair-hiring standards once they build local teams. Immigration formalities for new arrivals and dependants sit with the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), while the Economic Development Board (EDB) positions Singapore’s fair and predictable employment framework as part of its investment proposition.

FAQs

Are the tripartite guidelines on fair employment practices legally binding?
Not as statute, but they are enforced in practice. MOM can suspend work pass privileges, place firms on the FCF watchlist and require remediation. From 2027 the Workplace Fairness Act 2025 makes the core prohibitions statutory for employers with 25 or more employees.

What happens if my company breaches the guidelines?
Typical consequences include TAFEP engagement and mandatory corrective action, FCF watchlisting with closer scrutiny of every work pass application, and debarment from work pass privileges for 12 to 24 months in serious cases.

Do the guidelines apply to a company with only three employees?
Yes. Unlike the Workplace Fairness Act 2025, the TGFEP have no headcount threshold — every employer in Singapore is expected to comply.

Can I ever state a nationality or language requirement in a job advertisement?
Only where it is a genuine job requirement, and the justification must be stated in the advertisement itself. Unjustified preferences are the most common advertising breach.

Where do employees complain about unfair employment practices?
Employees and job applicants can approach TAFEP, and salary or wrongful dismissal claims go through TADM mediation and, if unresolved, the Employment Claims Tribunals established by the Employment Claims Act 2016.

Related guides

See also our employer roadmap for the Workplace Fairness Act 2025, the Raffles Corporate Services guide to the Family Office Principal track, and the Singapore Secretary Services guide to company registration for foreigners.

Need help with this? Call, SMS or WhatsApp +65 8501 7133, or email [email protected]. Little Big Employment Agency (EA Licence 19C9790) works with a panel of corporate and employment law firms; this article is general information, not legal advice.